Zambia battles insect pest threatening staple food
crops

A major campaign has been launched in Zambia
to combat an insect pest of farm-stored products that
has spread rapidly across the country, destroying stocks of
maize and cassava, the two most important staple foods in
the local diet.

The pest, the Larger Grain Borer (LGB), is now threatening
household food security in many areas of the country,
especially in Central, southern Lusaka, Copper Belt,
Eastern, Northern and Luapula provinces. In Zambia,
approximately 70 percent of the maize is produced by small-
and medium-scale farmers who use traditional storage
methods.

"It has been hectic here in Zambia as LGB spotfires are
appearing all over the country", reports Lindsay Semple, an
FAO consultant working on Zambia's National LGB Containment
and Control Programme (NLCCP).

First reported in Zambia in 1993, LGB had been restricted to
the Nakonde District of Northern Province bordering
Tanzania. But, in the autumn of 1995, massive quantities of
LGB-infested maize were imported from Tanzania to offset a
maize shortage brought about by three years of drought. An
avalanche of infested maize poured into Zambia and was
distributed as famine relief across the country (sometimes
by helicopters to reach inaccessible areas), along the
entire line of road/rail routes southward to Livingstone and
to areas bordering Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and
Mozambique.

To aggravate the situation, the government liberalized maize
marketing at the same time. This led to an influx of
traders, many of whom knew nothing of procedures and
regulations to prevent the spread of pests and diseases,
moving maize where supplies were short and prices high. Much
of the maize they trucked across the country was infested
with LGB.

The Government of Zambia quickly established the National
LGB Containment and Control Programme in response to this
mass influx of LGB. Its principal thrust is to develop an
Integrated Pest and Commodity Management Strategy so that
small-scale farmers are able to control LGB and other
storage pests. Some control options for small-scale farmers
include:

using improved storage structures, such as brick bin
and cement-plastered basket, and preventing
cross-infestation, from the field, the wooden store
structure, and from residues remaining in stores between
harvests;

using approved chemicals for protecting grains that
are effective against LGB and other grain storage pests.

In the medium to long term, biological methods will be
used to significantly reduce the severity of LGB
infestations, including the release of the predatory beetle
Teretriosoma nigrescens, which feeds exclusively on LGB
larvae and pupae. The beetle, mass-reared at Mount Makulu
Central Research Station near Lusaka, has been released at
certain infested locations, and these releases are scheduled
to continue. The predator is expected to significantly
reduce LGB populations both in the field and in the
stores.

FAO has been appointed the coordinating agency for all
donor-financed projects relating to Zambia's LGB control
programme. In a first step, FAO has provided funding for a
project that will formulate the control programme's
management strategy, train field staff in management
techniques and establish an effective countrywide Early
Warning and Monitoring (EWM) network for LGB.

So far, the EWM network has been established in six of the
affected provinces of Zambia to monitor the extent of spread
as well as LGB fluctuations. Trapping data collected at
these points will be compiled and collated at district,
province and national levels to identify the most
appropriate places to release the predatory Teretriosoma
nigrescens.
Other FAO projects have launched extension and awareness
campaigns and distributed local-language posters and
leaflets on LGB, storage and grain marketing. "From dust to
maize", a video produced jointly by FAO and the National
Resources Institute, has been shown on television several
times and has been used extensively during all training
workshops. Two-day LGB-awareness workshops targeted at
district agricultural staff have been held in six
provinces.